by Zorana Antonijevic
The future has always been a subject of speculation and hope, particularly within the feminist movement. As a feminist activist and scholar, I often find myself grappling with the complexities of envisioning a more just world, especially in light of the persistent violence and inequality that women face today. When invited to write about the feminist future as part of the Journal of Feminist Futures Symposium, after having reflected on the Hesitant Feminist’s Guide to the Future (Milojević, 2024), my initial reaction was despair; the challenges seem insurmountable, and the weight of historical injustices often obscures the path forward. As I usually do when I am blocked, I started looking for inspiration by surfing the Internet with the keywords: women, feminists and future. I was fortunate to come across a newspaper article over fifty years ago that contained two of three possible words: women and future.
The Same Old Landscape
The article by journalist Sergej Lukač, published in NIN[1], once a very influential weekly magazine in ex-Yugoslavia, titled “Žene godine 2000.” (“Women in the Year 2000”) with the subtitle “Slatki snovi” (“Sweet Dreams”) (Lukač, 1970), boldly presents a vision of women’s lives three decades into the future. With a hint of cynicism and a touch of sexism (see also a photo illustrating the article), he compares women’s lives in the imagined “distant” 2000 to the current 1970, the year the text was written. He portrays women of the 1970s in the stereotypical role of consumers who are capable of walking miles around stores to buy shoes, handbags, and gloves of the right colour. The “girls” from 2000 are not much different. Thanks to technological advancements, instead of shoes, they can change the colour of their eyes to blue or green, depending on their holiday destination (Lukač, 1970).
In his vision of the future, women from the 70s drag heavy baskets from the markets, tired and overworked. In contrast, Ljiljana, a woman, wife and mother from the 2000s, lives a technology-assisted life in an air-conditioned house with her husband, Pera and son Boban. Their lives, particularly her life, are high-tech programmed and facilitated when changing her son’s disposable pyjama diapers, pressing buttons of a self-navigated vacuum cleaner or self-made bed, and ordering food from SMIDO[2] department store that will miraculously show up in her spotless kitchen. After breakfast, Pera will go to his well-paid job, working three days a week from 10 am to 5 pm. Ljiljana, of course, does not work because a second child is on the way, but she is very active in an amateur theatre playing Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” at the Culture Center. The night before, she had a long video call with her retired mother, who lives in Dubrovnik[3] and her sister, who lives in Ljubljana[4]. “From Thursday to Sunday, the family flies to Ulcinj[5] on a supersonic jumbo-jet, or in the summer, chooses a quiet mountain place where hotels and apartments are very cheap. Pera chose to work for four winter months – he does not like winter sports. The rest of the time, of course, he is free” (Lukač, 1970). Everything is much better in 2000: people live longer, happier, healthier lives, work less for better pay, and have more intelligent children than in the 1970s! However, just like her (feminist) “sisters” from the past, the main character of this story, Ljiljana, is a wife and mother still responsible for the household, children, and care work involving interactions with long-distance relatives. This includes “programming the morning coffee” for her husband, Pera, who works in Elektroindustrija “Niš”[6].
Despite technological advancements, Lukač’s vision of women’s future still depicted them as primarily responsible for household duties and child-rearing. This juxtaposition of progress and stagnation raises critical questions about the advancement of women’s rights and gender equality. The same old feminist mantra, “the more things change, the more they stay the same,” resonates deeply in this regard (Milojević, 2024, p. 8). The year Lukač’s text was written, I was born.
Just eight years after Lukač’s article, the feminist international conference took place in Belgrade, titled “Drugarica Žena. Žensko Pitanje: Novi Pristup?” (Engl. “Comrade Woman. The Women’s Question: A New Approach?”) (Bonfiglioli, 2008, pp.50-73). The conference was the first one organised outside the official Communist Party organisation of women, thus challenging the status quo of state socialism in Yugoslavia. The conference agenda was intended to address pressing gender issues such as unpaid care work, violence against women, female sexuality, and abortion, including the political disputes between left parties and the women’s liberation movement – timely discussion in the West. It marked a significant moment in the feminist history of Yugoslavia, highlighting the need for a comprehensive approach to women’s liberation that transcended both socialist and capitalist frameworks (Zaharijević, 2015).
At the time the conference took place, I was in the second grade of elementary school and utterly unaware of feminism. The future, be it in 2000 or 2024, was far, far away. However, from today’s perspective of the 54-year-old feminist, one has to ask a simple question: where are we with the demands from the 1978 conference in 2024, and where might we be in 30 years?
We have to fast forward from the 70s and 2000s to 2024 to see that. The landscape for women in Serbia (and beyond, in post-socialist countries as well as globally) remains fraught with challenges. For example, despite a record number of women in parliament and government in Serbia,[7] the reality for many women has not significantly improved. The country grapples with alarming rates of femicide, and the Constitutional Court has suspended the implementation of the Gender Equality Law. The persistence of double shifts—where women juggle paid employment and unpaid domestic labour—is a feature of many households (Beker et al., 2023). The Serbian Orthodox Church is at the forefront against “gender ideology” (Zaharijević & Antonijević, 2024). Furthermore, a pro-life and ultra-right female Minister for Family and Demography promotes anti-abortion policies, exacerbating the struggles women face (Ivančević, 2024).
This situation raises the question: How can we envision a feminist future in a context where the past seems to repeat itself? In the country in a denial of war crimes from the 1990s persists, and the transformation of criminals into heroes (Ranković & Pebić, n.d.) continues, and where more is invested in (re)inventing and reinterpreting the past instead of imagining the future? What gives even less hope that a feminist future is possible is the fact that “images of the future and change are volatile and highly dependent on current events” (Milojević, 2024, p. 34).
Imagining the Future: A Vision for 2054
The method of the Futures Triangle, which emphasises the relationship between the past, present, and future, serves as a valuable framework for understanding the feminist struggle (Milojević, 2024, p. 34-35).
As I contemplate the year 2054, I envision a world where the struggles of the past have been addressed and a new paradigm of gender equality has emerged. In the future, I am 84 years old, having lived six years longer than the average life expectancy of a woman in 2024 (based on the data from the latest census from 2022), which is 78 years. My life is enriched by advancements in women’s rights and social justice. Most of my slightly older and younger friends are also thriving, and we often meet to walk in one of the many city parks and green spaces or along the banks of the Danube in Novi Sad or Belgrade, where the water is blue and clean.
I am in good health because preventive health examinations are readily available. Food, water, and air are unpolluted, and my recent hip surgery was performed just seven days after diagnosis, thanks to universal and equitable access to healthcare.
In this envisioned future, intergenerational solidarity is a cornerstone of community life. My pension allows me to live independently, and I only occasionally rely on volunteer service for the elderly, staffed by young women and men—future doctors and social workers. This is not merely a way for them to earn extra money while studying or to complete an unpaid internship. No! Volunteer work is integrated into educational curricula, fostering empathy and understanding between generations. Today, in the future, young people engage with the elderly, learning from their experiences while providing support and companionship. Volunteer work is an integral part of the school curriculum under the subject of “Intergenerational Solidarity”. This program, which has been in place for three decades, has diminished the stigma surrounding ageing, eliminating loneliness and poverty for the elderly and developing empathy among young people.
Education plays a pivotal role in shaping the feminist future. In 2054, the budget for education has increased dramatically (from 3.5% in 2024 to 35% in 2054!), allowing for the implementation of progressive curricula that prioritise gender equality, peace education, and tolerance. Children learn about the history of feminism and the importance of social justice from an early age, fostering a generation aware of and committed to dismantling systemic inequalities.
In my 80s, I remained active in the feminist movement. I regularly meet with young students of gender studies, both men and women, and we discuss how difficult it was to establish, maintain, and develop these studies 30 years ago (Antonijević, 2020). We also discuss how my generation fought for the use of the term gender and defended the Law on Gender Equality from being repealed.
The Law on Gender Equality is now part of a comprehensive anti-discrimination framework, and state institutions actively work to prevent violence against women. The military has been abolished and replaced by programs emphasising ongoing and constructive preventative peace-building and peacemaking efforts, first aid, and community service. It reflects a societal shift towards human security, peace, and cooperation, putting citizens at the centre of security concerns instead of states and ethics of care instead of justice (Antonijević, 2022). Moreover, the feminist movement has evolved to address contemporary issues with innovative strategies.
The Present Landscape: A Reflection on 2024
As I engage with my grandchildren in 2054, I am struck by their curiosity about the past. They ask me how society could have tolerated such high levels of all forms of violence and discrimination. It made me reflect on the struggles of my generation and the resilience that has characterised the feminist movement, but I often respond that I do not know how we ended up with such a bright future. Looking back, nothing indicated in 2024 that we would overcome the past and turn to the future.
The method of the Futures Triangle encourages us to consider current trends, emerging issues and waves of change that represent a drive to pursue changes in the future. Thus, I am prompted to reflect on the challenges faced by my generation and the resilience that has characterised the feminist movement. However, in retrospect, the evidence of 2024 did not suggest that the past would be overcome and a future orientation would be adopted. On the contrary, the year 2024 appears to witness the acceleration of long-standing trends pertaining to anti-feminist, misogynistic and militaristic politics. New issues have not altered the fundamental concerns identified at the 1978 conference. These issues have merely manifested in different forms, as evidenced by the rise of online forms of gender-based violence and the emergence of ultra-right, anti-migration, and illiberal policies. Furthermore, it appears that we are trapped in a state of prolonged stagnation, preoccupied with the daily challenges of survival, responding to relentless onslaughts and maintaining a constant state of vigilance to safeguard our hard-won rights.
It appears that the feminist movement has reached a point where it is unable to generate new ideas and strategies. In 2024, as in the preceding years, there was a tendency to react mildly to increasingly repressive political circumstances, a growing tendency towards militarism and an increase in intolerance within society. It appeared that we had collectively become desensitised to scenes of violence and violence itself. Despite the drafting of petitions and letters of protest, the analysis of the situation, and the proposal of measures for improvement, there was no discernible change. In 2024, it is becoming increasingly clear that change is a long and uncertain process. Unlike Ljiljana from 2000 or her nameless sisters from 1970, feminists of the 21st century seemed further than ever from contemplating the feminist vision of an equal society. While we have made some small steps, new challenges taught us that progress is not a straightforward, linear process. It requires a commitment to vigilance, solidarity and a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths. It would be remiss of us not to acknowledge the challenges that remain.
Ultimately, the most crucial question remains: Which feminist strategy was responsible for bringing about change? Was it a singular approach, or did multiple strategies contribute to the outcome? I find myself back in 2054, and I remember. We organised a general strike, which significantly impacted the country. Doctors, teachers, textile and shoe workers, and farmers all stopped working. Drivers, cooks, waiters, men and women from all professions also joined. People were on the streets demanding change. They stood in solidarity and supported each other. This is the present I dream of and the future I hope for.
Antonijević, Zorana. 2020. ‘A Successful Story without a Happy Ending: The Institutionalisation of Gender Studies at The University of Novi Sad’. In Does Knowledge Have a Gender? A Festschrift for Liisa Husu on Gender, Science and Academia, Örebro: Örebro University, 402–14.
Antonijević, Zorana. 2022. ‘How We Have Won the Battle and Lost the Peace: Women, Peace and Security Agenda Twenty Years After’. Journal of Regional Security 17(1): 5–24. doi:10.5937/jrs17-38120.
Beker, K., Janjić, B., & Čović, A. (2023). Izveštaj o pravima žena i rodnoj ravnopravnosti u Srbiji. FemPlatz.
Bonfiglioli, C. (2008). Belgrade, 1978. Remembering the conference «Drugarica Zena. Zensko Pitanje – Novi Pristup?»/ «Comrade Woman.The Women’s Question: A New Approach?» thirty years after. https://www.academia.edu/6114676/Belgrade_1978_Remembering_the_conference_Drugarica_Zena_Zensko_Pitanje_Novi_Pristup_Comrade_Woman_The_Women_s_Question_A_New_Approach_thirty_years_after
Ivančević, T. (2024). Izazovi feminističke politike—Podsetite nas šta to beše bezbednost. Udruženje Feministički kulturni centar BeFem.
Lukač, S. (1970). Kako su nekada zamišljali budućnost: Žena 2000. godine. NIN online. https://www.nin.rs/magazin/vesti/53402/zena-2000-godine-drugarica-slatkojesna-vama-na-usluzi
Milojević, I. (2024). The Hesitant Feminist’s Guide to the Future. Tamkang University Press Center for Futures Intelligence and Research.
Ranković, I., & Pebić, G. (n.d.). Unsuccessful Transitional Justice and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism in Serbia. Global Initiative for Justice, Truth and Reconciliation.
Zaharijević, A., & Antonijević, Z. (2024). Gender Equality for Show: Serbian Performative Europeanization. In A. Giorgi, J. Garraio, & T. Toldy (Eds.), Religion, gender, and populism in the Mediterranean (pp. 88–105). Routledge.
Zaharijević, Adriana. 2015. ‘Footnote in a Global History: On Histories of Feminisms’. Sociologija 57(1): 72–89. doi:10.2298/SOC1501072Z.
- NIN is a weekly news magazine published in Belgrade, Serbia and ex-Yugoslavia which acronym means Nedeljne informativne novine (Weekly Informational Newspaper). ↑
- Play of words in Serbian: You think of it – we bring it (in Serbian: SMIDO = vi SMIslite mi DOnosimo). ↑
- In 2024, a city in Croatia, the country formed after the breakup of Yugoslavia, became a member state of the European Union in 2013. ↑
- In 2024, the capital of Slovenia, the country formed after the breakup of Yugoslavia, became a member state of the European Union in 2004. ↑
- In 2024, a city in Montenegro, the country formed after the breakout of Yugoslavia, is still not a member of the European Union. ↑
- Electronics Industry Niš was one of the greatest Yugoslavian companies, employing over 10,000 people, and operating from 1948 until 2016. Its partners were the most significant European companies at the time: Alcatel, Philips, and Siemens. ↑
- Women’s participation in parliament in Serbia has increased over the past 25 years, from 5.1 percent in 1999 reaching a high 40.0 percent in 2021, and 38.0 percent in 2023. As of July 2024, the Serbian Parliament has 94 women members out of 247 members of parliament, representing 38.1 percent. ↑
